Nazi Germany and evolutionary theory

[JesusIsGod]

I read a book called, "The Day Nazi Germany Died", by Beate Wilder-Smith, and would like to quote and also receive some feedback on how you all feel about this particular chapter.

Chapter 2 - Nazi Policy

One of the central planks in Nazi theory and doctrine was, of course, evolutionary theory - equally a central plank in Marxist doctrine today. The Nazi's were convinced, as are Communist today, that evolution had taken place. Abiogenesis had occurred by Darwinian evolutionary processes an all biology had evolved spontaneously upward. They believed that natural selection could and should be actively aided, and therefore instituted political measures to eradicate the handicapped, the Jews, and the blacks, whom they considered evolutionary between stages. They wanted to raise the Nordic status of the German people by importing Scandinavian girls to breed with the SS ( Lebensborn E.V.). They wanted to create the German "Herrenvolk" to rule over the world.

 

[Buttons*]

well, did you know they used cranberries in "concentration" camps?

___________________________

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I read a book ...

Read a better one.

The Nazi's were convinced, as are Communist today, that evolution had taken place. Abiogenesis had occurred by Darwinian evolutionary processes an all biology had evolved spontaneously upward.

Please show me where the Communists today, or the evolutionists today for that matter, claim that "Darwinian evolutionary processes an all biology had evolved spontaneously upward".

 

[evearael]

Dialectical materialism is the theory that society will go through three stages... thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. This is the basis of Marxism. Marx saw communism as the inevitable natural evolution of SOCIETY, not of biological evolution.

Hitler was a madman who slaughtered millions. I would not model my view of any group, evolutionists or communists, on the beliefs and actions of that man.

 

[painted wolf]

dude this is like using Hitler to condemn Christians. Hitler and his cronies were a sick lot that used every trick avalable to twist good things into thier vile scemes. From religion and science to pseudoscience and mysticism.

wa:do

 

[EgoTripper]

If you're talking about fruit flies, then yes, what Hitler described works quite well in artificially evolving a "designer species." In fact, it's been done in the lab many times.

The Nazi problem had less to do with evolution and more to do with ignoring the difference between humans and fruit flies.

 

[St0ne]

I thought Hitler was astrong believer in god, I'm not 100% sure if he was Christian or not but anyways, so now he was a theological\evolutionist as well?

Edit: Although not a very reasonable one.

 

[Fade]

Ah yes, the old Conservative/Fundamentalist Christian chestnut. How to tar the Theory of Evolution with Nazism and Communism. Related to the attempt to prove that Nazism was a left wing ideology.

Been a while since I've heard this one.

 

[Ori]

well, did you know they used cranberries in "concentration" camps?

___________________________

We need to make some concentrated cranberry juice then!

 

[James the Persian]

The actions of which you speak in Nazi Germany are an example of the evils of eugenics and social Darwinism, two ideas which were considered quite respectable (though not generally applied so extremely) in quite a number of nations (including the US) prior to WWII. Whilst both ideas are perverted interpretations and attempted applications to human society of evolutionary theory, to use them as arguments against evolutionary theory is rather like taking the actions of a few extremist Christians (say abortion clinic bombers) and trying to argue from that that Christianity is an evil and murderous faith. It simply doesn't add up.

James

 

[michel]

I thought Hitler was astrong believer in god, I'm not 100% sure if he was Christian or not but anyways, so now he was a theological\evolutionist as well?

Edit: Although not a very reasonable one.

He certainly wasn't a Christian; an extract from:-http://www.trueorigin.org/hitler01.asp

In Hitler’s words “the heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity” (Hitler, 1953, p. 6). The Jesuits were “swine,” and all of Christianity was “Jewish Christianity” which was comparable with “Jewish Bolshevism.” Hitler concluded that both were evil and both had to be destroyed (Kershaw, 2000, pp. 330, 488). His reasoning was based on his belief that Christianity was an “illegitimate” Jewish child and, as a Jewish child, was swine like its parent that must be eradicated. Hitler considered Christianity the “invention of the Jew Saul” (Azar, 1990, p. 154).
A major reason Hitler opposed Christianity was because Hitler saw Christianity and Science as diametrically opposed to each other (Azar, 1990, p. 154). He concluded science would win, and the Christian church would eventually in due time be destroyed. Hitler even believed science was the creation of the German race. Hitler was trying to use science — especially Darwinism — to create a utopia on Earth, and he made it absolutely clear that there would be “no place in this utopia for the Christian Churches” in his plans for the future of Germany. He realized that this was a long term goal and “was prepared to put off long-term ideological goals in favor of short-term advantage” (Kershaw, 2000, p. 238). Hitler had to fight one battle at a time — and elected to take on the fight with the churches in due time. The Christian church would be destroyed later, and for now it was needed. Only after the war would Germany be able to fully implement the “final solution” to the “Christian problem” (Kershaw, 2000, p. 516). In the meantime, “calm should be restored ... in relations with the Churches” (Kershaw, 2000, p. 39). But it was

“‘clear,’ noted Geobbels, himself numbering among the most aggressive anti-Church radicals, ‘that after the war it has to find a general solution.... There is, namely, an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a Germanic-heroic world-view’” (Kershaw, 2000, p. 449).​

 

[Fade]

From wikipedia.

Adolf Hitler was raised a strict Catholic: he was baptized, served as an altar boy, sang in the choir, and received the sacraments and Communion; in public discourse he continued frequently to proclaim his Christianity and Catholicism.[1] However, later in life he did not attend mass and therefore was not in this way a practising Catholic as an adult.

From the note

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler#_ref-0

↑ "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." Adolf Hitler; from John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507 (URL accessed January 16, 2006). "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter." by Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered at Munich, April 12, 1922; from Norman H. Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1, New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 19-20 (URL accessed January 16, 2006).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler#_ref-0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler#_ref-0

He may have strayed a little.

 

[Fade]

An interesting site discussing Hitlers Christianity

http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

 

[michel]

From wikipedia.


He may have strayed a little.

A little ? I am sure I read somewhere that he had his personal astrologist, and ....I have found a reference to it.
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/9958_astrology.html
Fuhrer's Private Astrologer
Political astrology reached its peak popularity in the time of the Third Reich. Hitler was very much interested in occult sciences, especially the Eastern ones, he was inclined to mysticism. As is known, it was already in 1923 that a German astrologer recommended the prospective "demoniac fuhrer" not to take any political actions in autumn. When the November putsch failed in Munich, the greatest criminal of the 20th century reviewed his attitude to astrology.
At the end of 1933, many astrologers started working for national socialists; they grasped very quickly what was welcomed forecasts in the new Reich and what wasn't. Disagreeable foretellers either disappeared at all or were sent to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen.
Hitler's private adviser Otto Hanussen was the best astrologer of that time. However, the Fuhrer disliked Hanussen's forecasts saying of gross mistakes that, as the astrologer said, would be further committed by Hitler and the foretelling concerning division of Germany for a very long period. So, Hanussen was liquidated for his disagreeable foretelling.
Secret Sabbath in the Wartburg Castle
Early on March 15, 1938, citizens of a small town Eisenach, the geographical center of Germany, were awakened with roar of engines. They saw a cavalcade of cars driving along the neat mountain road to the top of the Wartburg mountain, where the Wartburg Castle stood since 1607. Eisenach and the Wartburg Castle played a mysterious role in the life of Germany. In this very place great church reformer Martin Luther stayed in confinement within 1521-1522. As a legend says, once a devil came into his cell, and Martin Luther threw an ink-pot at the devil. Since that time, a black ink spot shows up on a wooden wall of the cell from time to time. The spot cannot be wiped off. The spot showed up before WWII. There is no explanation to the phenomenon even now.
A secret conference of astrologers and clairvoyants of the Third Reich took place in the Wartburg Castle, they discussed Germany's future there. The conference was held on the initiative of Doctor Joseph Goebbels (certainly, on the Fuhrer's permission); the number of its active participants equaled a dozen. A SS subdivision and a special group of Gestapo's radio- and radiotechnical prospecting were the guards at the conference. The guards had modern facilities meant for
intercepting, so Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels could hear everything that professional magicians of Germany spoke at the conference. Unfortunately, no records of the conference and its participants exist any longer. However, one participant of the mysterious conference in the Wartburg Castle, a former SS hauptsturmfuhrer wasn't sent to Sachsenhausen, but served a jailer in the concentration camp Oswiecim. From there, the Soviet army took the man prisoner and sent to a penitentiary in USSR's Mordovia. The German prisoner was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. But in 1955, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer persuaded the Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev to release all prisoners of war. The people were released by 1957.

 

[Fade]

So? Didn't Reagan use an astrologer? Using astrology doesn't make you less Christian. The wise men were astrologers and Jesus being born under a star sounds suspiciously like astrological metaphor to me.

 

[painted wolf]

Ultimatly the point is that Hitler is not a good example of anything except depravity.
Using his policies to denounce Evolution is just as bad as using him to denouce Christianity.
Sure he "believed" in both, but his "faith" was warped and twisted to suit his own agendas.
No one wants him in thier 'camp' dispite the fact, that as a dead human being we can not defiitively say what exactly he believed in. We have some bits and pieces of what he said but he can not clerify any of it... not that we would nessisarily want to hear it if he could.

Ps. lots of 'good' christians are into astrology, mysticism and so on... including several on this forum.
are they "less" christian for it?

wa:do

 

[Halcyon]

Abiogenesis had occurred by Darwinian evolutionary processes an all biology had evolved spontaneously upward. They believed that natural selection could and should be actively aided...

And that betrays their lack of evolutionary knowledge. You can't aid natural selection, once you start meddling it becomes selective breeding - no longer evolution.

 

[Nehustan]

Doesn't Racial hygiene fly in the face of evolutionary theory? If people are Untermensch, won't they naturally die as they are unviable? Just some thoughts, not that I adhere to this ideology.

 

[St0ne]

Out of curiosity I have recently been reading some of Mein Kampf, Hilters own Biography. Why, well it's not affected by bias and I can draw a more accurate conclusion of what his ideas on evolution actually were. My understanding of his own writing is that he was in fact NOT an evolutionist, he did believe in genetics and race in such a way that the only logical way his whole idea could hold together is if man was created as different races (as in the Bible), if he believed evolution the whole theory would fall apart on the fact that humans evolved out of Africa therefore today Africans would have the most pure genetics and not the Aryans. Basically if you read Hitlers own words and hold a reasonable undersanding of evoltion you will see that Hitlers theory flies in the face of evolution. Hitler was a all about genetics not evolution.

Also one of the first things I noticed while reading Mein Kampf is how similar Hitlers conclusions of race as far as putting it into evolution goes is very very similar to the Theists method of concluding that evolution is racist. I guess that means their minds work a lot like Hitler's. Firstly Evolution is not racist but which would you rather be if it was?

A racist?
or
A mind that works like Hitler's.

 

[Sunstone]

I agree that Hitler was much more influenced by the pseudo science of eugentics than he was by biology and evolutionary theory. Eugentics was quite internationally popular around the time Hitler was growing up and also through out his life time. In the States, at least, it even had some academic creditability at one time.

My grandmother, who was born in the late 1800's, was taught eugentics at a respectable women's college sometime around the turn of the century. For the rest of her life, she believed that people with "inferior genes" (such as people with diabetes, in her opinion) should voluntarily do "the moral thing" and "not breed". To put that in context, she was in most other things liberal for her times. She held no prejudices against black people, for instance, and was locally referred to as "That Terrible Terry" for her liberalism. But her college course in eugentics was disastrous to her common sense!